Protracted Refugee Situations and the “Warehousing” Option: The Intractability of Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Complex

This article examines the phenomenon of Protracted Refugee Situations (PRS) and the so-called warehousing of refugees in the case of Kenya’s Dadaab refugee complex. We analyze the intractability of PRS in this particular case and argue that there are four main features that make it so: (1) a host state that views the refugees primarily as a security threat and takes very little responsibility for their well-being; (2) UNHCR acting as a surrogate state with very little influence over the Kenyan government and little incentive or capacity to remedy the situation; (3) an ongoing political situation in Somalia that prevents the safe return of refugees; and (4) a general failure on the part of wealthier countries to commit to substantial resettlement initiatives.

UNHCR...progressively adopted the position...that repatriation [constitutes] the only viable solution for the vast majority of the world's refugees" (Crisp & Fielden, 2008, p. 78). Host states and the international community prioritize the approach of "repatriation rather than integration", demonstrating that host states are inclined to view refugees as an "economic and environmental burden" above all else, leading to their reluctance to accept responsibility for these individuals (Crisp, 2003, p. 2). One reason for this disinclination is that many host states of PRS are global South countries that struggle with "declining economies [and] growing populations, [and that are] affected by conflict [and] instability", circumstances that are only exacerbated by the additional pressures of supporting an enormous refugee population (Crisp, 2003, p. 2). Furthermore, many of these host states feel that "the burden they...[accept when it comes to refugees is] not being adequately shared by the world's more prosperous states", leading them to feel overwhelmed and unwilling to involve themselves adequately in the provision of asylum (Crisp, 2003, p. 2). Finally, as protracted refugee situations endure through the decades, refugees increasingly "[come] to be regarded [by host states] as a threat to local, national, and even regional security" (Crisp, 2003, p. 3). As such, host states prefer to remove these individuals from their territories and send them back to their countries of origin, effectively circumventing the responsibility of providing for these refugees.
However, a critical issue with repatriation in regards to PRS is that it is "discussed in terms of a return to 'home', even a generation or more after the flight from conflict and when the descendants of the original refugees may never have seen their homeland" (Bakewell, 2000, p. 357). Furthermore, international organizations such as UNHCR and Human Rights Watch outline-in literature, in reports from the field, and in law-a number of indisputable principles for refugee protection in the country of first asylum, principles that may be violated by repatriation schemes. For example, in accordance with the international principle of non-refoulement as specified in the 1951 UN Convention & Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, for repatriation to be undertaken as a solution to refugee situations it must first be carefully ensured that the refugees' countries of origin are sufficiently safe for their return (UN General Assembly, 1967). As a peremptory norm of international law, non-refoulement "prohibits states from returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to countries or territories where [that] person's life or freedom would be threatened" by any means, something that in many cases effectively removes repatriation as a viable solution to PRS (Mwangi, 2018(Mwangi, , p. 1319).

Local Integration
Another solution pursued by UNHCR and its international counterparts is local integration. Though commonly listed as one of the three desired durable solutions to address PRS, local integration is actually instituted in so few instances that it has "almost become a 'non-solution'" (Crisp & Fielden, 2008, p. 78). Host states are quick to identify refugees as burdensome to their countries both socially and economically, particularly when these refugees are in a protracted situation of "imposition". Furthermore, in many global South host states, the locals themselves are struggling with poverty, leading them to hold concerns that the entrance of refugees into the market will create competition that may further threaten their own livelihoods. Often, this result in the refugee community in a host state becoming the easy scapegoat for many of the country's security problems, further contributing to the reluctance of the state to allow for the integration of these foreign individuals. From the perspective of the host community, "[perceived] security problems negate or diminish the benefits of refugee resources, and are a major factor in host attitudes becoming more antagonistic" (Jacobsen, 2001, p. 591). All of this poses a number of difficulties for the success of local integration, as it may only be accomplished with a great degree of cooperation between the host state and the international refugee regime, as well as a willingness on behalf of local populations to accept refugees into their community.

Resettlement
The third durable solution that UNHCR promotes for protracted refugee situations is resettlement in a third country. Because PRS most commonly occur in global South countries, many host states are incapable of furnishing refugees with the conditions and resources they need to better their lives, leading many of these individuals to view resettlement as their only hope. Given that both local integration and voluntary repatriation are often unattainable, it may be argued that the "only real way for...refugees to get out of...camps and rebuild their lives is by seeking resettlement to countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand" (Crisp, 2000, p. 626). According to UNHCR statistics on refugee resettlement, in 2018 alone, roughly 1.4 million refugees were in need of resettlement, and only "81,300 resettlement places were provided by resettlement states" (UNHCR, 2019). Although this figure represented an eight per cent increase from the previous year's resettlement statistics, "the gap between needs and actual resettlement places exceeded 90 percent and [continues] to grow" (UNHCR, 2019).
Another aspect of refugee resettlement that must be taken into account is its subjectivity to "increased scrutiny in recent years due to national security concerns-initially in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and again more recently...[after a] series of deadly, large-scale terror attacks undertaken by radicalized migrant-background youth...in Europe in late 2015 and early 2016" (Fasani, 2016, p. 4).
Unfortunately, events such as these have resulted in a global political climate that disfavours the idea of refugee resettlement. The global pandemic of COVID-19 has also provided a substantial setback in terms of resettling refugees in third countries, as we will see when we discuss the protracted nature of the case of Dadaab.  (Mbiyozo, 2018, p. 2). Because "less than 1% of refugees are resettled in 3 rd countries", the solution of resettlement is largely unfeasible in comparison to the scale of the global refugee population today (Mbiyozo, 2018, p. 2).

Warehousing
Unfortunately, the fourth and all-too-common solution that emerges in relation to PRS is hardly a solution at all: warehousing. Warehousing, or containment policy, refers to "the practice of keeping refugees in protracted situations of restricted mobility, enforced idleness, and dependency-their lives on indefinite hold-in violation of their basic rights under the 1951 UN Convention" (Smith, 2004, p. 38 (Kaiser, 2006, p. 598).
Unable to be resettled abroad and having no real prospect at being locally integrated in any capacity into their asylum country, the most common outcome of warehousing is that refugees in PRS are held "forever in a state of quarantine" (Sanyal, 2014, p. 139).
The warehousing approach to resolving PRS "serves to disenfranchise refugees [and deny them] basic rights they are entitled to under UNHCR's guidelines" (Sanyal, 2014, p. 139). Not only does warehousing embody a grave violation of both international and regional conventions on refugee protection, it also raises numerous concerns regarding the lack of basic human rights afforded to refugees in these situations of containment. Warehousing compromises several rights of refugees as individuals seeking asylum, such as the right to freedom of movement  (Jacobsen, 2001, p. 592).
As will be discussed with the case of Dadaab, there is typically very little incentive for the host state to object to, or remedy, the situation of warehousing within its borders. In the end, host states' responses to protracted refugee situations by way of warehousing not only represent a denial of refugees' basic human rights but also serve to waste their economic and creative energies altogether, creating a scenario of frustration, despair, and hopelessness that proves advantageous to neither the refugees nor the state (Loescher & Milner, 2006;Smith, 2004).

The Dadaab Refugee Complex
Somali refugees in Kenya represent a prominent example of warehousing as a response to PRS.  (Kumssa, 2014, p. 148; see also Burns, 2010). For shelter, refugees often reside in nothing more than makeshift huts and tattered tents that were meant to be temporary. These living conditions leave residents exposed to theft, violence, and other transgressions.  (Burns, 2010, p. 8; see also "Kenya: half of the assessed households", 2018).
As refugees in these camps are unable to work to supplement the paltry food rations distributed to them by international aid organizations, any reduction of food aid has extremely negative ramifications. In Dadaab, child malnutrition consistently "hovers around 10%" (Sieff, 2015). instead become completely dependent on the inadequate aid they receive from organizations such as UNHCR (Kumssa & Jones, 2014, p. 41). This reality has psychological consequences for refugees in PRS such as those trapped in Dadaab, leading them to suffer from "diminished self-worth due to their inability to better their situation or to escape from the conditions of camp life" (Kumssa & Jones, 2014, p. 41).
According to Article 26 of the 1951 Convention and Protocol, refugees in Kenya are also supposedly guaranteed the right to freedom of movement, but the reality is that Dadaab's residents are rarely afforded this right (UN General Assembly, 1967, p. 27). In practice, these individuals are forbidden to leave the confines of the complex unless granted a movement pass from the government of Kenya, which are rarely distributed. If apprehended outside of Dadaab and found to be lacking proper documentation, a refugee will incur a penalty of "a six-month jail term, a fine of 20,000 Kenyan shillings (approximately $200), or both" (Maina, 2016, p. 3). Such are the living conditions for the refugees that a senior UN aid worker in Dadaab described the complex as "the world's largest detention center", where individuals seeking asylum are effectively imprisoned to await a solution to their plight (Betts, 2013, p. 146).

While the refugee camps in Kenya "may well offer a greater degree of security [to refugees] than [what]
is available in Somalia,...Dadaab hardly [provides] the kind of safe refuge implied by the notion of asylum" (Crisp, 2000, p. 624). During the 1990s, the refugee camps of Dadaab were renowned as "the most violent in the world, with rape, murder and armed robbery almost daily occurrences" (Loescher & Milner, 2005, p. 157). Security in the complex has long been severely compromised by its location 80 For women and children, the security situation is even more concerning. The camp is located in an arid region of Kenya with little natural vegetation, requiring refugees to venture several kilometres outside the camp to scavenge for firewood. In Dadaab, this is primarily a responsibility of women and children, and yet the task places them in a position of great vulnerability due to shifta (bandit) activity around the camps. Given the insufficient presence of security forces in the area, the rampant banditry occurring on the outskirts of the camps, and the spillover of armed combatants from neighbouring Somalia, women  (Crisp, 2000, p. 602).
In creating Dadaab and responding to its PRS with a de facto encampment policy, Kenya has greatly infringed upon refugee rights, ensnaring these individuals "in an intractable state of limbo" (Warner, 2012, p. 108). The principal result has been "wasted human capacity and deprivations of human dignity" of the refugees living in Dadaab (Abdi, 2005, p. 7). The country is also actively violating several peremptory norms of international law and regional refugee protection conventions existing between eastern African countries. As such, the Dadaab refugee complex represents an enormous failure on the part of the Kenyan state to properly address the needs of a protracted refugee population and work towards a durable resolution of the situation.

Key Features that Render the Warehousing Situation so Intractable
The case of Dadaab provides a window into understanding the intractable nature of the PRS conundrum across the globe today. In examining this case we identify four key features that make the situation so durable, all of which highlight the difficulty in addressing the many problems inherent with the warehousing approach in this case and beyond. The first key issue is that the host state-Kenya-does not consider itself responsible for the plight of the refugees and as a result has done very little to make the camp livable for its inhabitants. For many years after independence in 1963, very few refugees entered Kenya, and most that did were skilled labourers from Uganda or Rwanda that provided valuable cheap labour to the Kenyan state (Nanima, 2017, p. 47). As such, Kenya's refugee policy during this time was one of de facto integration. However, this approach changed drastically in the early 1990s when larger numbers sought asylum in Kenya from neighbouring Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. It was at this time that Kenya ceded control over its refugee affairs to UNHCR.
The Kenyan state has been blunt about this approach, as the director of the Kenyan Department of Refugee Affairs demonstrated by stating that "the refugee business is not the business of the Kenyan government, [but rather]...the responsibility of the international community" (Betts, 2013, p. 145). Thus, UNHCR has taken on the responsibility of providing the basic necessities for those living in Dadaab, as will be discussed below.
In addition to eschewing almost any responsibility for the well-being of refugees in its territory, the Kenyan state has also resorted to an approach of securitization vis-à-vis Somali refugees. After Kenya joined the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is tasked with reducing the threat of Somali terror group Al-Shabaab and stabilizing the security situation in Somalia, Al-Shabaab warned the Kenyan government that this would make it a target for attacks from the militant group. Indeed, between 2011 and 2014, Kenya had "112 terror attacks...in which hundreds of people have died, and others have been injured" (Nanima, 2017, p. 46). These attacks were then linked by the Kenyan state to the flow of Somalis into Kenya, providing them with a rationale to crack down on flows of refugees into Kenya. In fact, the Kenyan state was restricting access for Somali refugees even before these attacks. For example, they closed the Kenya-Somali border in January 2007 citing "increased insecurity in the border area and the threat of ICU [Islamic Courts Union] militia crossing into Kenya" as justification for this action (Mwangi, 2018(Mwangi, , p. 1321. Under the guise of security concerns, the border closure represented an attempt to prevent any further entry of Somali asylum seekers into the country, and it also stipulated the immediate cessation of refugee registration in the country. The immediate result of these orders was that "between 5,000 and 7,000 [Somali] asylum seekers [were left] waiting on the Kenya-Somali border in urgent need of humanitarian assistance" (Mwangi, 2013(Mwangi, , p. 1321).
Furthermore, this border closure allowed Kenyan police to send Somalis back into Somalia, thereby breaching the fundamental principle of non-refoulement. This is just one more example of the Kenyan state failing to abide by international conventions and norms regarding the treatment of people seeking asylum (Note 3).
In April 2021, the Kenyan government announced its intention to close both Dadaab and Kakuma by June 2022, a decision that will affect the over 430,000 refugees that call the camps home (Reuters, 2021). While Kenya has been making intermittent threats about closing the camps since 2016, a meeting between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi in April 2021 resulted in a joint statement regarding camp closures, suggesting increased potential for upcoming decisive action in this regard. In its statement, the Kenyan government indicated its intention to "repatriate some [refugees] and give others residency", though the likelihood of this happening is uncertain given Kenya's long refusal to assume responsibility for the refugees on its territory (Reuters, 2021 as it becomes the key resource mobilizer, continually failing to "responsibilize" the government. He claims that within the organization, "it is not really rewarded" to truly seek solutions that empower the government to make sure that "I will not be necessary". UNHCR, as with many other intergovernmental organizations, appears caught between trying to uphold the standards and ethics that form the foundation of its work and attending to the interests of both host and donor states. Miller (2017) also found that, despite the substantial presence of UNHCR in Kenya, the organization is largely unable to influence the Kenyan state to play a more productive role in making the lives of Somali refugees more bearable.
The third key feature that makes warehousing so durable in the Dadaab case is the intractable nature of The nascent central government continues to be primarily funded by the international community and has struggled to exert much influence or control outside the capital, Mogadishu. Stremlau (2019) points to one of the key problems with the state-building process to date: "Given that the state-building initiatives have largely been externally driven and funded, political patronage has been outward looking, with fewer incentives to be accountable to Somalia's citizens". Al-Shabaab's continued threat to peace has also meant that Somali citizens are still waiting for their first opportunity to vote directly in national elections. The security situation today shows very little signs of improving, which once again makes the warehousing of Somali refugees in Kenya a durable option. if one focuses exclusively on refugees and removes internally displaced people from the total number of people displaced, "even at its recent high point, in 2016, just 1 percent of refugees worldwide were resettled" (Council on Foreign Relations). With numbers this low, it is unsurprising that lack of a more substantial international response to the global refugee crisis in the form of third country resettlement is an important feature of PRS and the durability of the warehousing approach.

Conclusion and Implications
The case of Dadaab presents a devastating example of PRS and the harm that such a warehousing approach causes. It also demonstrates how and why the warehousing option can be so intractable and difficult to overcome. The durability of the warehousing "solution" in Dadaab generally conforms to the literature on PRS in the sense that it demonstrates how difficult it is to solve the refugee crisis using the three core solutions-voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement. We demonstrate that these solutions are either insufficient or impossible within the existing context and thus why warehousing continues to be the default option for both the host state and the international community.
The four key features of intractability in this case can also help us analyze other cases where the warehousing option exists. In cases where all four features are present, PRS is most likely deeply entrenched and destined to remain so for quite some time. While the local context will differ from case to case, the overarching analysis of these four features in the Dadaab case can help identify the degree to which the warehousing situation is more or less intractable.
While it is beyond the scope of this article to rigorously propose and analyze solutions to the warehousing crisis in cases like Dadaab, one can also work with the four features of intractability to begin charting a path forward. For example, on the question of resettlement to third countries, it would be highly beneficial if wealthier countries substantially increased their resettlement targets. After sustained pressure from civil society, President Joe Biden recently announced that the US will lift the cap on refugees from 15,000 to 62,500 this year, followed by a further increase to 125,000 for the following year ("Joe Biden raises Trump refugee cap", 2021). While this is welcome news, it still only addresses a very small fraction of the refugee population globally. On the issue of UNHCR and its alleged complicity in perpetuating the warehousing scenario, this is a more difficult dilemma to solve.
As Slaughter and Crisp (2009, p. 3) point out, humanitarian agencies in general, and UNHCR in particular, have been placed in the position of establishing and assuming responsibility for such "sprawling camps" in order to fill gaps in the international refugee regime that were not envisaged at the time of its establishment after the Second World War.
While warehousing refugees does not address the root causes of displacement or provide a viable long-term solution to the plight of refugees, the reality is that UNHCR is acting to mitigate the harms caused by displacement within a complex and limiting framework of state sovereignty.
If host states are not receptive to the local integration option, international efforts at resettlement are not sufficient, and the security situation in the home country is dire, UNHCR is all that is left for the displaced populations. This despite the fact that conditions in the camps further strip refugees of their human dignity, leaving them to languish for decades in camps bereft of opportunities for advancement.
Though solving the political situation in Somalia would certainly help facilitate the option of voluntary repatriation and go a long way to tackling the intractability of the warehousing scenario, addressing the root causes of such a conflict and finding a productive way forward has escaped both Somali and international actors for roughly 30 years. Unfortunately this means that the warehousing "solution" will most likely continue to be used in this case for the foreseeable future.